It was not a pretty game, but it was not a pretty evening either. In the middle of a rainy and windy night, sophomore midfielder Brian White made sure the Blue Devils did not go home soaked and empty-handed.
White found the back of the net in the 94th minute, giving Duke a 1-0 overtime win against Jacksonville Tuesday evening at Koskinen Stadium. With the victory against the Dolphins, the Blue Devils stretched their winning streak to four matches and will now have to beat Virginia Tech Friday on Senior Night in order to start the ACC tournament in Durham.
“[Tonight’s positive aspects are] winning the game, getting a shutout and playing reasonably well throughout the game without being clinical in front of the goal once again,” Duke head coach John Kerr said. “We had to hold on and gather ourselves in going to overtime and we approached [it] well. It seemed that we were going to be the only one that was going to score the [winning] goal.”
Four minutes into overtime, senior captain Zach Mathers took a corner kick from the left side of the pitch that White finished with a header. The golden goal was the Flemington, N.J., native’s sixth of the year, tying him with classmate Jeremy Ebobisse as the team’s second leading striker.
“[Mathers] always takes the corners from that area and that’s my run into the near post,” White said. “We made eye contact and I just knew he was going to play it to me. So I just made the hard run to the front post and put [it] on my head.”
The Blue Devils (9-6-2) entered Tuesday’s contest with 32 goals in their pocket, with nine of them coming in their last three games. But despite outshooting the Dolphins 17-6 in regulation, Kerr’s squad could not score. In the first half, nine different Blue Devils racked up a shot, but all their attempts missed the target.
The Dolphins (3-11-1) only created two first-half chances and did not put a shot on frame. The visitors employed a defensive-oriented approach Thursday, with eight or nine players frequently protecting the defending line.
Duke headed to the locker room with nothing to show for its efforts.
The Blue Devils could have taken the lead in the second half with more of an attacking mindset. In a three-minute span, Duke manufactured its best four closing-period chances, but Mathers’ header went wide in the 65th minute and sophomore attacker Brody Huitema sent another header above the crossbar three minutes later. Just a few seconds after Mathers came within inches of scoring, goalkeeper Marc Meny turned away a long-range shot from freshman midfielder Ciaran McKenna. The Glasgow, Scotland, native powered a second shot from 25 yards out that Meny deflected to the corner in the 69th minute.
Jacksonville almost found the back of the net with nine minutes left to play, but goalkeeper Mitch Kupstas snuffed out a shot from forward Ejiroghene Mrabure—the Dolphins’ top-scorer with five goals.
Before White delivered the winning goal, Mathers had the best overtime chance for Duke, but after dribbling past a defender inside the box, the senior midfielder from Keller, Texas, fired a shot that flew above the crossbar.
On the other side of the field, the Blue Devils registered their second straight shutout. Kupstas collected two saves against the Dolphins and stretched his scoreless streak to nearly 270 minutes.
“Getting two shutouts in a row and getting that momentum and having the belief that you can have the shutout is vital because we have given too many goals this season,” sophomore defender Markus Fjørtoft said.
The Blue Devils end their regular season Friday at 7 p.m., when they battle the Hokies looking to secure a home seeding in the opening round of the ACC tournament.
“Every game is tough, no matter who you’re playing,” Kerr said. “We’ve got to keep believing in what we’re doing. If we can click and score early, things seem to calm down for us. To be honest, we had some looks at the goal and our striking at the goal was way off target and we’ve got to work on that [as well as our] approach play. It was a bit off in the first half. We should make it a little bit easier to finish our chances.”
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